DECEMBER 5, 2025

AI poses unprecedented threats. Congress must act now “Despite the speed at which it is progressing, AI is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media and within the general population,” Bernie Sanders warns . “That has got to change.” His committee staff is gearing up a report that will ask, among other questions, “Who should be in charge of the transformation into an AI world? Currently, a handful of the very wealthiest people on Earth — Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and others – are investing many hundreds of billions of dollars in developing and implementing AI and robotics. Are we comfortable with seeing these enormously powerful men shape the future of humanity without any democratic input or oversight?” The Guardian Opinion

In a latest survey: “Almost half of all voters say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can ever remember, per the latest edition of the POLITICO Poll. And it’s a view held by 37 percent of 2024 Trump voters,” per Playbook. Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute reminds consumers that it’s a two-way (two-Trump?) street — when your wages are suppressed by a capitalist owner class, the cost of living is going to suck even more… in MS.NOW

The Boomers Are Protesting Trump. Where Is Gen Z? An academic political scientist notes “the ‘No Kings’ movement drew an estimated five million people to the streets in October” — a good survey universe — but that he found a dismayingly minimal level of activism by Gen Z, those 18 to 31, compared to boomers. “No Kings” is not the only mode of protest these days, of course, but… Brendan Nyhan in NYT Opinion 

Partyism Without the Party — Zohran Mamdani’s victory was rooted in organizations that took up the base-building and mobilization functions that once fell to parties. The campaign’s “sinew and muscle came not from TikTok or Instagram, but rooted civic organizations like NYC-DSA, DRUM Beats, United Auto Workers Region 9A, and the mosques, synagogues, and churches that opened their doors to the candidate.” These are existing, party-independent community institutions that recent analysts have called a “party surrogate,” writer and DSA member Chris Maisano observes. “Given the daunting odds of successfully establishing any new party, [political scientist Adam] Hilton proposes a network of chapter-based organizations ‘oriented toward building a base within working-class communities and labor unions that can also act as an effective independent pressure group on the Democratic Party.’ This is precisely what Mamdani and other socialist candidates have done.” DISSENT [hat tip to 5 Lefty Links]